Associate Actions, Dependent Devices and Define Alarm Rules

Configuring Dependencies for Monitors

You have the option to associate multiple dependent devices across managed servers. Dependencies determine the health availability of a Monitor. This includes dependent parameters of the Monitor based on which the severity of the health and availability are determined. By configuring dependencies, you can specify whether the health or availability depends on all or few dependencies. The severity is also determined by order of severity which is given below:

  1. Critical
  2. Warning
  3. Clear

For example, If there are 9 dependencies in a Monitor Group where three are critical, three are warning, and three are clear and the severity of Health of Monitor Group is based on any three selected dependencies, then the severity will be Critical as per the order of severity.

To configure dependencies for the Monitor, do the following steps:

  1. Select the Home tab that lists all the Monitor Groups.
  2. Click on the Monitor Group that lists the Monitor.
  3. Click on the Configure Alarm icon  of the respective Monitor. This opens the Configure Alarm screen.
  4. Choose Health or Availability from the combo box. The dependent attributes will be shown in the list box under dependencies.
  5. Select and move the required attributes from the left box to the right box using >> button. By default, all the dependencies for the attributes of the monitors are added in the right box. You can also remove the default settings using the Action / Alarm Settings option.
  6. Specify whether the rule for determining the severity for health or availability.
    • Depends on all selected parameters: The severity of health depends on the severity of all the selected parameters.
    • Depends on any "n" selected parameters: The severity of health depends on only 'n' selected parameters. The number of parameter, n has to be selected from the combo box.
  7. Click Save All to complete configuring dependencies.

Define Alarm Rules

Configuring Alarm Rules for Monitors / Monitor Groups:

By configuring Alarm Rules, you can specify how the health or availability depends on the constituent Monitors in that Monitor Group. For eg., using Alarm Rules, you can say Health of the Monitor Group is Critical if the health of any two monitors in the monitor group is critical or Availability of the Monitor Group is Critical if health of any one of the monitors is critical.

To configure alarm rules for the Monitor Group, do the following steps:

  1. Select the Home tab that lists all the Monitor Groups.
  2. Click on the Monitor Group you want to configure alarm rules.
  3. Click on the Configure Alarm icon  of the Monitor Group [under Today's Availability]. This opens the Configure Alarm screen.
  4. Click the Health or Availability button to select the status you wish to alarm on.

For Availability Alarm Rule

  • Action - Configure an Alarm Action. The action will be executed when the alarm is generated. Refer Action / Alarm Settings.
  • Define Alarm Rules (For Monitor Groups) - Create rules for Alarm, Rules enable users to specify the conditions that must be met for the alarm to be generated. The alarm will generated when any one of the rule is matched. You can Configure Alarm Rule to show the Monitor Group as Down depending on the health/ avalability of
    • Any of the monitors - You can set the number of monitors on which the health of the monitor group depends.
    • All of the monitors
    • Selected monitors - Click the+symbol to select Associated / Non-Associated Monitors & Monitor Groups. You can select the attributes of the selected monitors on which the health of the monitor group depends.
    • Percentage of monitors - You can set the percentage of monitors on which the health of the monitor group depends.

Dependent Device - Monitor Group can have a device where Child Monitors Availability status will depend on the Device Availability.

For Health Alarm Rule

  • Action - Configure an Alarm Action. The action will be executed when the alarm is generated. Refer Action / Alarm Settings.
  • Define Alarm Rules (For Monitor Groups) - Create rules for Alarm, Rules enable users to specify the conditions that must be met for the alarm to be generated. The alarm will generated when any one of the rule is matched. You can Configure Alarm Rule to show the Monitor Group as Down depending on the health/ avalability of
    • Any of the monitors - You can set the number of monitors on which the health of the monitor group depends.
    • All of the monitors
    • Selected monitors - Click the+symbol to select Associated / Non-Associated Monitors & Monitor Groups. You can select the attributes of the selected monitors on which the health of the monitor group depends.
    • Percentage of monitors - You can set the percentage of monitors on which the health of the monitor group depends.

Dependent Device - Monitor Group can have a device where Child Monitors Availability status will depend on the Device Availability.

You have the option of setting any number of rules. For eg., it can be Monitor Group's Availability is down if any one of the monitor's availability is down or if the health of any one of the monitor is critical. Likewise, you can have your customized set of Alarm Rules.

Note :In Alarm rules
  • Rule processing order will be Down, Critical and Warning i.e., Applications Manager will first process Down rules followed by Critical and Warning.
  • Processing rules will be stopped at any condition if rules is matched, further it won't proceed to process rules.
  • In 'Selected' rule type, Monitor Group status will depend on all the selected monitors severity.

Dependent Devices

You can configure a dependent device in such a manner that if the availability of the dependent device is down, the concerned Monitors/Monitor Group's availability will be down. You can configure the dependent device for a Monitor Group or individual monitor to suppress false downtime alarms caused by the dependent device being down.

Configuring Dependent Device

To configure dependent device for the Monitor Group, do the following steps:

  1. Select the Settings tab.
  2. Click on the Configure Alarms link, found under Alarm / Action settings.
  3. Select the monitor or monitor group for which you want to configure dependent device
  4. Under Availability, click on Configure Availability. Then select Dependent Device tab. It opens up the Configure Dependent Device screen.
  5. From the list of monitors, select the monitor you wish to assign as Dependent Device.
  6. You also have the option of supressing the alarms generated from the Dependent Device.
Note: 
  • Sub Group will override MG Group Dependent Device Configuration.
  • Monitor level configuration will override all the Dependent Group(Monitor Group and Sub Group) level Dependency configuration.
  • Configuring Dependent device at monitor group level is like configuring dependent device for each device under monitor group.

Here are a few scenarios of monitor dependencies and the state of the parent monitorafter adding the dependency:

Monitor 1Monitor 2State of monitor 1 After Adding monitor 2 as Dependency
Down Down Down -  As both Monitor 1 and Monitor 2 are down.
Down Up Down -  As Monitor 1 is down.
Up Down Up
Up Up Up

Dependent Monitor Group

You can configure a dependent monitor group in such a manner that if the availability or health of that dependent monitor group is affected, the corresponding monitor group's availability or health will also be affected.

Configuring a Dependent Monitor Group

To configure a dependent Monitor Group, do the following steps:

  1. Select the Settings tab.
  2. Click on the Configure Alarms link, found under Alarm / Action settings.
  3. Select the Monitor group for which you want to configure dependent group
  4. Click on Configure Availability or Configure Health button. Then select Dependent Monitor Group tab. It opens up the Configure Dependent Monitor Group screen.
  5. From the list of monitor groups, Select the groups that you wish to assign as Dependent Groups.

Cyclic Dependencies:  Cyclic Dependencies sometimes arise when multiple dependent devices are associated across managed servers to form a loop, resulting in infinite recursions. As it is a rather tedious task to track errors caused by circular dependencies, it is important to consider how your device dependencies are configured and to try to keep all of the dependencies acyclic. This means that if device A depends on device B, and device B depends on device C, we don’t want device C to depend on device A.

Monitor Group Dependencies

Here are a few scenarios of monitor dependencies and the state of the parent group after adding the dependency:

Monitor Group 1Monitor Group 2State of group 1 After Adding Group 2 as Dependency
Down Down Down -  As both Group 1 and Group 2 are down.
Down Up Down -  As Group 1 is down.
Up Down Up
Up Up Up

Suppress Alert for Dependent Monitor Groups
Users can suppress Alerts For Dependent Monitor Groups. The suppress alert feature works the same for both Dependent Monitor and Dependent Monitor Group. If a user chooses to suppress alerts for a Dependent Monitor then alerts are suppressed for the parent Monitor Group too. Here are possible scenarios:

Monitor Group 1Monitor Group 2Monitor 1 Suppress Alerts ?State of Group 1 After Adding Dependency of Both Group 2 and Monitor 1
Down Down Down No Down -  As all Group 1, Group 2 and Monitor 1 are down
Down Down Up No Down - As Group 1 and Group 2  are down
Down Up Down No Down -  As Group 1 and Monitor 1 are down
Down Up Up No Down - As Group 1 is down.
Up Down Down No Up
Up Down Up No Up
Up Up Down No Up
Up Up Up No Up
Down Down Down Yes Health-Critical -  As all Group 1, Group 2 and Monitor 1 are down.
Availability-UP -  Alert is Cleared due to Dependent Monitor Configuration
Down Down Up Yes Health-Critical - As Group 1 and Group 2  are down.
Availability-UP - Alert is Cleared due to Dependent Monitor Configuration
Down Up Down Yes Health-Critical - As Group 1 and Monitor 1 are down
Availability-UP - Alert is Cleared due to Dependent Monitor Configuration
Down Up Up Yes Down - As Group 1 is down.
Up Down Down Yes Up
Up Down Up Yes Up
Up Up Down Yes Up
Up Up Up Yes Up